Tag Archives: iPad

A day with the Nexus 7

Posted on December 29, 2012 | 2 Comments

image

This week I picked up a nexus 7. After spending a day with it I can say, “This is a slick device.” Let me share some of the ups and downs I’ve had in the day I’ve used it.

The good

The first thing I love about the nexus 7 is the hardware. This device just “feels right” to hold and use. The screen is brilliant, and the dimpled back makes it easy to hold. The device is inexpensive, but it doesn’t feel cheap.

There are also a lot of features I love about Android jelly bean. Task management is STELLAR, and notifications are very nice as well. The way Jelly Bean’s launcher is customizable is also wonderful. The task switching and management are, in particular, well beyond anything Apple has done.
Being able to swipe the keyboard to type is also amazing (I’m typing this post that way right now). It takes some getting used to, but the more I use it the faster I get.

Google integration is also great, if also a bit creepy. I no sooner set up my nexus 7 when I started getting chat notifications from a friend of mine. That threw me for a loop! While creepy, its also useful. My calendar immediately loaded into the application, which also puts iOS to shame, and adding dates is incredibly simple. Google+ integration is also well done, though I do think the iOS app is a bit better (update, after updating my apps, Google+ on Android is every bit as wonderful as on iOS).

I also have to give props on the battery life, I’ve been using my nexus all day and still have 17% left in the tank, that’s very good. No need to worry about needing to charge in the middle of the day.

The not so good

As good as Jelly Bean is it still isn’t as easy to use as iOS. The best way I can put it is, “When I’m using it for productivity purposes it feels more like a traditional computer than a tablet.” People have complained about Apple not opening the filesystem on iPod devices since their inception, but as I use the nexus I think they might be right to keep it off limits. The filesystem on the nexus is, for example, called, “SD Card.” I understand that means “local storage,” but a normal user might start poking for the SD card slot, or panic because they don’t have an SD card to put into the device (which doesn’t take one). It’s the type of cryptic notation I expect on a traditional computer, but not a tablet.

Also, the way files are handled, and apps are registered to handle them, seems off. Out of the box the nexus has Google play books installed, to which I added both kindle and nook readers. I then tried to open an epub from dropbox and was told I didn’t have an app able to open that type of file even though I knew I had two. It turns out that nook, Google play books, and kindle don’t want books to be loaded in by alternate methods, so they don’t register as being able to open eBook files – and there is no simple way to tell them to do so. This also hit me with markdown files which have an “.md” extension. The markdown apps I’ve discovered all save with “.txt” as their extension, and don’t register as opening the other designation. Despite the fact that markdown is plain text, Jelly Bean refuses to open the files. Now, this is as much the responsibility of the developers as anyone, but with an open filesystem it would be nice to have the option to set applications for certain extensions.

The nexus 7 also lacks miracast support, so connecting to a TV or projector is not easily done. On the plus side, I might have to pick up a raspberry pi to see if I can hack it to be a wireless display adapter for presentations, as the nexus 7 would make a great speaking device. I realize I could have gotten a kindle fire or nook hd to get video out, but I wanted the plain Android experience my first time out. I knew the device didn’t support video out when I purchased it, so it wasn’t a shock, just a bit of a bummer.

A good many people are hoping Apple makes the next iPad into a 16:9 device. After using the nexus for a day I have to say I am not one of them. For media consumption, 16:9 is amazing. For productivity, however, 4:3 simply feels less cramped.

The unhappy

A lot is said about the app ecosystems of both Android and iOS. The assumption has been that iOS apps are more plentiful, better to look at, and easier to use. I have to say I’m a bit underwhelmed by the app selection in the Google play store. My workflow for writing is to create in markdown, and have it saved to a dropbox folder where I can edit it on any other device. Currently, there is no app which will do this as far as I can tell. Some come close, but are hindered by not handling sub-directories and not recognizing the .md extension (which I find especially odd). The is also nothing quite like notability in the play store. Papyrus and lecture notes come close, but neither allows for the type of effortless writing I’m used to on my iPad. This may be because android developers tend to assume anyone writing on an Android device will have an active pen with which to write, which I don’t have. On this later point I will have to keep playing and see if I can get used to it.

The way Android handles notifications is wonderful, but it’s also a bit haunted. When I finally installed overdrive to handle epubs, for example, tapping an epub notification causes it to disappear for me, while for a friend it gives him an option to open the book. I know I must have something mis- configured, but I simply can’t find it (any advice would be welcome).

Conclusion

The nexus 7 is a beautiful device and is fun to use. At the moment I’d say it’s best suited for media consumption, rather than productivity. This is partly due to hardware limitations, the lack of miracast or video-out being key. It is also partly to the current lack of apps to support a flexible work-flow. I’m sure this will change in time, but right now work still needs to be done.

I am, however, in love with the smaller form-factor. If/when Apple comes out with a retina iPad mini, that will replace my larger iPad. For now, the nexus is a fun device that can teach Apple a thing or two. I’m glad to have it, and will continue to play with it.

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Upgrades

Posted on December 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

I was thinking if upgrading my iPad in 2013. I like the retina display, and my iPad is two years old. Still, as I began to figure out what it would take to save up for a new iPad I began to think, “You know, I really like my iPad 2.” It's true, my iPad is my primary device, trumping my MacBook for just about every task I do except presentations and high-level video editing. I love my MacBook, but my iPad is like an extension of my arm.

My contemplative look

I contemplate my technological future

As I've never had a moment where I wished I had something besides my iPad 2, it seems rather dumb to upgrade it. After all, it has the same specs as the iPad mini, so it'll likely survive another ios upgrade, or even another two. So why not hold on to a device I love to use? It's not like my white MacBook, which was beginning to give me fits when creating massive presentations before I upgraded it.

When I eventually do upgrade my iPad, I'll probably go with an iPad Mini. I LOVE the form factor. In fact if the mini had a retina display and the same processor as the third generation iPad, I might have decided to upgrade anyway.

So what to do? Well, I've been intrigued by the Nexus 7 since it came out, and I've been wanting to give Android Jelly Bean a try. So I think I may be picking one up this week sometime. That, or use my wife's upgrade to get a iPhone 5 and give her my 4s.

Either way, I'm keeping my faithful sidekick. Why get rid of something that works perfectly for what I need?

 

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The great migration

Posted on December 18, 2012 | Leave a comment
WriteUp iPad

WriteUp, my favorite Markdown editor, running on my iPad.

Over the past several years I’ve been on an interesting word processing journey. First, I decided to migrate from a traditional desktop suite to the online offering Google Docs (which is now part of Google Drive). I hadn’t originally expected to stick with Google Docs for my regular word processor, but I quickly became hooked on both it’s speed and the way I could integrate Google Docs with the mobile office suites on my iPhone. Suddenly, the idea of “syncing” was gone. With Google Docs my documents lived in the cloud — and my edits followed me on wherever I was.

My shift to Google Docs was significant, but even after migrating to it I was using my MacBook for my writing. Then, on a cold day in March of 2011, I picked up a device which would take me on the next step of the journey — I got an iPad 2. We had purchased a first generation iPad for my son, who is visually impaired, shortly after they came out — I was shocked by how much I enjoyed using the tablet. I borrowed his iPad several times for meetings, and was amazed by its portability, ease of use, and invisibility. I had always used my laptop when meeting with people to make plans for special services, weddings, and funerals. While the laptop was functional, it was far from elegant — I always felt like there was a wall between me and the people with whom I was meeting. When I was using my son’s iPad I kept the functionality of planning services electronically, but the wall of separation caused by a laptop vanished. The iPad had a similar form-factor to a pad of paper, and people interacted with me as though that’s what I was using. I resolved to get the next iteration for myself when it came out.

I acquired a bluetooth keyboard soon after I purchased my iPad, and decided to try my hand at writing a sermon on the device. At first, I didn’t much care for the process of writing on my iPad. The interface in my mobile office suite was clean, but it took too much effort to change formatting. It also didn’t have support for paragraph styles to create structured documents. In the end, however, the extreme portability of my iPad won me over. The iPad was lighter, less obtrusive, and lended itself to distraction-less writing. It got to the point where I actually felt annoyed when I had to use my MacBook whenever I sat down to write my sermon.

For over a year I wrote my sermons on my iPad using a mobile office suite. It worked. The suite had some good outline support, and synced with Google Docs very well. I still wanted a decent setup for paragraph styles and was irked by how hard it was to format text — but the pros of writing on my iPad outweighed these frustrations. Then two occurrences converged and changed my sermon writing work-flow one more time.

The first of these was the shift from Google Docs to Google Drive. Suddenly mobile suite, which had played well with Google Drive so well, became unstable. This was not an acceptable state of affairs, and I began to wonder if there was be a better workflow for me.

The answer came to me when I became aware of a plain-text markup system called “markdown.” The simple style-codes in Markdown keeps documents human-readable while allowing for the creation of highly structured documents, and quick exporting to PDF, HTML, and other formats. The flexibility, ease of use, and incredible portability won me over. I traded the ability to outline as I’d been used to, but gained the ability to write documents with good structure and clean formatting without having to ever take my keys off the keyboard. Now my documents live in dropbox, are synced in real-time, and have no dependency on a specific file format or service to continue being useful for years to come. Even if dropbox goes away, for example, I’ll still have my local copies and be able to read my files with any text-editor. It’s been quite a journey over these last couple of years from a desktop office suite, to cloud-based office suite, to dropbox linked plain text markup which is truly mobile.  In fact, this post was written in markdown, I just copied it’s HTML output to the WordPress editor.

While I’m not using Markdown for all my writing, I’m currently writing a novel in Scrivener, I am no longer worrying about manually formatting my text as I write.  It’s been quite freeing.

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Mobile Suite Showdown – Importing and Exporting

Posted on February 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

Productivity apps on the iPad continue to be one of the top selling points for the device. It’s no surprise, then, that there are several office suites available in the App Store. This post is going to explore the three main “all in one” suites which are available on the iPad – Documents to Go, Quick Office, and Office2 HD. Apple’s iWork is also available in the App store, but the “separate app” nature of the suite sets it outside the scope of this comparison.

Today we’ll be looking at the fourth, and final, comparison – importing and exporting. Each suite will be reviewed on both how they deal with data both on a local network and to the cloud.

Quick Office HD

One of the selling points for Quick Office is the ease of which documents can be uploaded to, and retrieved from, computers on the local network via a built-in file transfer interface. This setting can be toggled by tapping the gear button in the file screen and toggling the “file transfer” option. Turning the option on will reveal an ip address which can be used to acces files which are locally stored inside Quick Office. For additional (or, really, any) security an added authentication option can be toggled which will require users to input a user and password combination before connecting. It’s a good idea to make sure this is on. Once file transfers are enabled, users can access Quick Office’s files (for locally stored files only) though a simple web-interface, or by connecting to the server through the finder or windows explorer. In my experiments with Quick Office I found that the file transfer server will disconnect a finder connection when switching to another app on the iPad – this is probably a limitation of iOS.

Quick Office HD also has an impressive number of options available for storing documents in the cloud. Aside from the “big three” of Dropbox, Google Docs, and Box – Quick Office also allows to connections to Sugar Sync, Evernote, and several more. Connections to these services benefit from Quick Office’s excellent file managment tools, however features which are unique to each service are not implemented. This is especially true for the lack of “starred documents” in Google Docs.

Documents imported into Quick Office are handled well – even supporting elements such as outlines, which cannot be generated by the suite itself. Quick Office will also display unrecognized fonts in a default sans serif face without stripping the font information from the actual document. The suite handles spreadsheets well, but my two test presentations suffered from lost formatting and stripped animations.

Office2 HD

As with Quick Office, HD Office2 HD has a built-in file transfer option. This can be access by tapping the gear button in the lower left of the file management screen and toggling “Enable File Sharing.” Similarly, security can also be enabled for this feature. While Quick Office has a colorful and well-thought out web interface, Office2 HD brings up a plain list hyper-links with an upload button at the bottom of the page (which you will probably need to scroll down to reveal). It gets the job done, but it’s not fun to look at. If you are using the file transfer option for this suite connecting via the finder or windows explorer is a better option.

The available options for cloud storage are not as great as in Quick Office. The “big three” are present, as are some other players, but that’s it. The suite, however, adds the ability to connect to a service via webDav – so “roll your own” cloud storage is an option.

Importing files into Office2 HD doesn’t render quite as good results as Quick Office. Unrecognized fonts are displayed in a sans serif font (and retained when opened elsewhere). Outline lists, however, are not displayed correctly though, again, the formatting is retained when opened elsewhere. The application handles spreadsheets well, however, and has in previous months been able to handle files which caused the other two suites to crash. It retains most cell formatting, but cannot hide cells. My first test presentation displayed with moderate success. My second test presentation removed the gradient background and didn’t handle a bullet list very well. Neither presentation retained animations.

Documents to Go

Unlike the other suites in this comparison, Documents to Go makes use of a desktop application to handle local transfers. In one sense, this can be seen as a hassle, because it requires the downloading an application to transfer documents over a local network. On the other hand, Documents to Go removes the need to manually move documents between devices (as in the other two suites). Once installed, Documents to Go’s desktop application creates a folder which will automatically sync files across devices. For uses who want to sync only on their local network, this is a good option.

Documents to Go has the least available options for cloud storage out of the three suites in this comparison. It has the big three, and adds only Sugar Sync as an alternative (each suite also offers iDisk, but this product will soon be discontinued so it can hardly be counted). It does, however, offer some special hooks for GoogleDocs users (the previously mentioned “stared documents”) – this is a nice touch.

Files imported into Documents to Go are displayed nicely. Text is re-flowed for the screen and font information is retained. I sometimes noticed a glitch in the font for outlines when a document is created in the Suite and then uploaded to GoogleDocs, which is an error which should be addressed. Also, Documents to Go has a tendency to strip out paragraph spacing when information is moved through the suite. Again, this is a glitch which I’d like to see fixed. Spreadsheets imported well, retaining cell formatting and even hiding cells which had been hidden in GoogleDocs. One of my test presentations, however, caused the application to crash.

Conclusion

Each of these suites handles importing and exporting in slightly different ways. Documents to Go allows for local syncing, which is a plus, but the added step of installing a desktop application to do so is a non-starter for many. The local file transfer feature for the other two suites is a nice touch (though the web interface is prettier in Quick Office) but requires a manual transfer of data. Again, this is a non-starter for many users.

Each suite has the “big three” cloud storage services available, but Quick Office offers the most options of all the suites. To it’s credit Office2 HD has built-in webDav support, allowing users or organizations to set up their own cloud storage services. Documents to Go has the fewest cloud storage options available, but has some key features GoogleDocs users will appreciate.

The suites each do a credible job importing word processing documents and spreadsheets, but are dismal when importing even the simplest of presentations (really, don’t even bother). The parity of features for each suite makes it difficult to declare a “winner” in this category. As a GoogleDocs user I tend to lean towards Documents to Go, but users of other cloud solutions will be happy with any of the three suites in this comparison.

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Mobile Suite Showdown – Editor Features

Posted on February 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

Productivity apps on the iPad continue to be one of the top selling points for the device. It’s no surprise, then, that there are several office suites available in the App Store. This post is going to explore the three main “all in one” suites which are available on the iPad – Documents to Go, Quick Office, and Office2 HD. Apple’s iWork is also available in the App store, but the “separate app” nature of the suite sets it outside the scope of this comparison.

Each suite will be explored for file management, editor layout, editing features, and importing/exporting. We’ll primarily look at the word-processing features of each suite, but will also compare the spreadsheet and presentations modules for each app. Today we’ll be looking at the third comparison – editor features.

This installment of the series is going to be handled a bit differently. The same three suites will be reviewed, but we’ll break down the review for each module in the package – Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Presentation.

Word Processor

This is the module I use most in any of these suites. Given that I have to write what amounts to a short reflection paper every week, this makes sense.

Quick Office

As was pointed out in the previous segment of this comparison, Quick Office HD attempted to create a simple interface which was pleasant to look at and easy to navigate. Unfortunately, the shortcomings of their interface choices also impacted the feature set they included in the suite. The word processing module can do basic character formatting, color and font changes, and simple paragraph formatting like indents and lists. It handles these tasks, decently and can interpret more complex formatting well when it’s imported into the suite, but there is no way to handle more complex formatting directly in Quick Office HD. There is no way to customize lists or add spacing between paragraphs. These are two features I use constantly, so their absense is something I feel.

Quick Office HD feels like a mobile editor, which is odd given their decision to present content in a page-layout view. It’s useful for editing existing documents, or creating documents with basic formatting, but it doesn’t seem to be designed for complex projects.

Office2 HD

For an inexpensive package, Office2 brings a lot of punch to the features debate. This suite handles all the basic formatting covered by Quick Office HD. It also, however, has an excellent slate of advanced formatting features. Paragraph spacing, line spacing, columns, manual breaks and tab stops, and full-fledged styles. While I gave Office2 HD poor marks for it’s cluttered interface, it seems the developers were busy adding an insane amount of features to their product. In addition the already listed features, this suite also allows the insertion of images and footnotes into a document. Something no other application in this comparison is able to do.

The desire to have desktop-level features in their application is admirable, and it is rather amazing to have so many options available on a mobile editor. Unfortunately, some of the features feel half-baked. When version 5 first came out, the suite was sluggish – leaving many of the advanced features buried behind a frustrated waiting game. Two iterations have passed since 5.0 was released, however, and the speed has gotten better each time. In fact, Office2 is actually faster on my iPad than Quick Office HD. Other features, however, still need some work. Hanging indents on lists have a tendency to disappear once a document is closed and re-opened.

This is a suite which shows much promise – but it still needs to work out some kinks.

Documents to Go

As with layout, this suite splits the difference between the other two in this comparison. It has many of the features included in Office2 except paragraph styles, images, and footnotes. In place of these omissions, however, Documents to Go adds an extensive array of list options. This includes a good range of multi-level lists for the creation of outlines. As this is a feature I use every week, it’s something I appreciate.

Unlike Office2, the advanced formatting features in Documents to Go “just work.” The only glitch I’ve discovered so far is the omission of paragraph spacing when a document is synced and retrieved from Google Docs. This is an inconvenience, and one which I wish would be rectified, but it’s not a show-stopper.

Spreadsheet

I use spreadsheets infrequently, but when I do they are an indispensable tool for my work.

Quick Office

The Spreadsheet module in Quick Office HD is slick, fast, and intuitive. Functions are easily accessed next to the editor bar, and some basic formatting is found in the main editor window – including the option to format cell data into a pre-arranged type. Other editing includes the ability to do simple borders, change cell color, and align cells both vertically and horizontally. In fact, the same “drag to align” interface which seems unnecessarily graphic in the word processor feels elegant in the spreadsheet. Merging cells and wrapping data in a cell is also easily accomplished.

Selecting multiple cells in Quick Office HD is also easily done. When a cell is selected, a handle appears on each side which can be used to drag a selection across multiple rows, columns, or both.

Office2 HD

The spreadsheet (called “workbooks” when you create a new one) in this suite has a great many features, all accessed through the buttons on the editor toolbar. Included among these buttons are quick borders, and button which will sum all the data in a column (I love this). Data types are found under a dollar sign icon, but advanced formatting is found under an unattractive “…” icon (again, the interface needs a little work). As with the word processor, the formatting buttons span between two pages.

Selecting multiple cells isn’t initially as elegant in Office2 HD as it is in Quick Office. A basic selection requires double tapping a cell and then dragging through the cells you want – a handle appears which can be used to adjust the selection. Alternatively, however, if you tap a single cell and then long-tap another cell a range can will selected (row, column, or box depending on where you long-tap). This would be helpful when trying to select a very specific data-set in a large spreadsheet.

Documents to Go

Documents to Go has an impressive array of functions which can be done with it’s spreadsheet, and can handle basic formatting to display it’s data. Borders, however, are missing from it’s tool-set – which I find an odd omission. The spreadsheet module of this suite, however, does add the ability to hide and unhide rows and columns. This is helpful, for example, when a spreadsheet is used to create a schedule – past weeks can be hidden from view to allow the quick browsing of data.

Selecting multiple cells in Documents to Go, however, is an exercise in frustration. The feature is accessed by double-tapping a cell and then dragging. There is, however, no handle present which can later alter a selection. On large spreadsheets, this creates headaches when attempting to select data.

Presentation

My initial response to anyone wanting to use the presentation modules in these suites is, “Just use Keynote.” As they are a bundled part of the suite, however, I include them in this comparison. I won’t bother with the screenshots, though, it’s just too depressing.

Quick Office

When thinking of the presentation module for Quick Office HD the word, “rudimentary” comes to mind. It has support for the formatting of basic shapes and text boxes – and that’s it. No builds, no backgrounds, no transitions. Just the text and shapes. The purpose of this app seems to be to display, and edit, imported slides rather than build new presentations from scratch.

Office2 HD

This presentation module includes a few more features than Quick Office, including the ability to set a background image. In addition, there are some included slide templates and to import images into slides. Builds, transitions, and compositing features (such as borders and drop shadows) are not included. I also find the presentation module to be a bit unstable, as it tends to crash when inserting images.

Documents to Go

If Quick Office was “rudimentary,” the presentation module in Documents to Go is “bare bones.” There are several simple templates offered when creating a new presentation, but once created the content of the slides can only be altered via an outline view! Speaker notes can be added to slides, in the slide-view mode – but I’m not sure why anyone would bother.

If you’re not importing slides into Documents to Go, it’s best to forget this module even exists.

Conclusion

In terms of sheer features, Office2 HD dominates. It’s advanced formatting for word processing documents, and several nice touches to it’s spreadsheet module, make it come out on top. Some of the features aren’t quite stable, however, so it might be best to save often when using this suite for content generation. Over all, Documents to Go comes in second due to a stellar word processing feature-set – but Quick Office’s spreadsheet module is also a tempting offer.

 

 

 

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Mobile Suite Showdown – Editor Layout

Posted on February 11, 2012 | 1 Comment

Productivity apps on the iPad continue to be one of the top selling points for the device. It’s no surprise, then, that there are several office suites available in the App Store. This post is going to explore the three main “all in one” suites which are available on the iPad – Documents to Go, Quick Office, and Office2 HD. Apple’s iWork is also available in the App store, but the “separate app” nature of the suite sets it outside the scope of this comparison.

Each suite will be explored for file management, editor layout, editing features, and importing/exporting. We’ll primarily look at the word-processing features of each suite, but will also compare the spreadsheet and presentations modules for each app. Today we’ll be looking at the second comparison – editor layout.

Quick Office Editor

Quick Office

Quick office places  it’s formatting buttons at the top of the editor screen. The number of buttons is minimalist, with text formatting options to the left and tools to the right.  The buttons are persistent, allowing for quick formatting without too much trouble.  Oddly, many formatting options are hidden behind a gear icon – grouped with the tools.  Found under the gear icon are font options, alignment, lists, colors, and indents.  While I applaud the attempt at a minimalist interface, I don’t find burying the bulk of formatting options in one cluttered interface to be an elegant solution.

Quick office also displays it’s content in a page-layout format – allowing a content creator to see how their content will look when printed or exported to a PDF.  This can be a useful feature in some instances, but it ends up wasting most of the iPad’s screen real-estate with an exciting display of document margins.

Office 2 HD editor

Office2 HD

If Quick Office to be minimalist in its layout, Office2 HD celebrates complexity.  There are two “pages” of buttons in it’s interface – the first holds text formatting options and the second contains paragraph level formatting like alignments, lists, and intents.  There is, however, one paragraph level formatting option which can be found in the first page of options – paragraph styles.  While is is more a “feature” than a layout choice, Office2 HD is the only “all in one” mobile office suite which supports paragraph styles, and their inclusion as an obvious option is welcome.  The buttons are not persistent, though, they only appear when the keyboard is engaged.  They also feel cramped, and accidental  taps are not uncommon when flicking between button pages.

This suite also defaults to page layout view.  Unlike Quick Office, however, there is an option to switch to “screen layout.” This makes much better use of the iPad’s screen size, and also allows users to zoom the text to a comfortable level without affecting the layout of the page.

Documents to Go editor

Documents to Go

Documents to Go places it buttons at the bottom of the editor.  This is likely a carry-over from the iPhone UI, where bottom buttons are easier to reach while typing, but it translates well on to the larger screen.  There are five buttons in this row – file options, text formatting, paragraph formatting, lists, and tools.  Each button tap reveals a list of common options for that category, along with a “more” option to access more complex formatting.  The buttons, however, are not persistent and actually disappear when the on-screen keyboard is active. Again, this is likely a by-product of the suite being a universal app.  Hiding the buttons when typing makes some sense when using a smaller screen, but on the iPad the vanishing act gets frustrating.

Unlike the other two suites, Documents to Go doesn’t have a page layout view.  It uses a screen layout view only, reflowing the text as a user pinches and zooms the content.  Given that screen layout view makes much better use of the iPad’s screen, the lack of a page layout option isn’t missed much.

Conclusion

Quick Office attempts to create a fast, minimalist, interface while laying out content with a metaphor common to a desktop suite (page view). In the end it ends up failing in both button layout and content layout.  Office2 HD has a complex, and cramped, interface.  It does, however, have two views for content – allowing a user to view content in a way which makes sense on an iPad’s screen.  Documents to Go manages to split the difference and uses a simple button layout and has no page view option at all.  While Documents to Go has some quirks, mostly due to it’s universal nature, it’s still the best editor layout among the three suites.

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Pleasantly Disrupted

Posted on December 19, 2011 | Leave a comment
I remember watching the initial iPad announcement and thinking, “Well, it’s kinda cool, but underwhelming.” It didn’t have a camera, and it really looked like nothing more than a big iPod Touch. As I already had an iPhone, I saw no need for “another device.” Then my neighbor got one to be his “take along computer” for his handyman business and let me play with it. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed using it. Manipulating the screen through touch was an emotional experience, and the experience of using the iPad felt nothing like using my iPhone. I was hooked.

Several months later, as we were wrestling with getting a device for my son so he could read the Bible and his books for school, we knew the iPad was what he needed (he’s significantly visually impaired). I generally kept my hands off, but I borrowed it from time to time to see how I would use an iPad in my pastoral work. Before the year was up, I knew this was a device I wanted to have. I saved up my Christmas and Birthday money, added some from my ministry reimbursements, and stood out in line last March to be among the first to get an iPad 2. It’s changed the way I do computing.

Initially I categorized my iPad as “another device.” It was useful, but for the majority of my takes I still opened up my MacBook and did my “serious” work. I continued to write my sermons in GoogleDocs, my video editing in Final Cut Express and iMovie, my blogging from the web-interface, and my presentations in Keynote’s desktop incarnation. I used my iPad for editing existing documents, quick references, and e-mail – “light” tasks that I could do quickly and the move on to other things.

Over the months, however, I noticed a change my my mental categories. More and more I found myself packing up my iPad when I went “out and about” to work, even when I was doing “serious” tasks. This shift was aided, no doubt, by my acquisition of an inexpensive keyboard and apps like Blogsy (the best blogging tool I have ever used). The real motivation for this shift, however, was the emotional attachment I have to the iPad. When I am using it, even with the keyboard, I have a sense of being more connected to the task on which I’m working. I used to say I loved the iPad because when I used it the wall between myself, and anyone with whom I happened to be collaborating, was removed. Three quarters of a year into my life as an iPad user, however, has revealed to me how using the iPad also removes the wall of separation between me and the content I create. I now see my iPad as my computer, and my MacBook as “another device.” The MacBook is a necessary device for storage, and for large projects and presentations, but it’s what I go to when I simply can’t use my iPad.

It was an unexpected transition, and this disruptive tool isn’t even two years old. I’m almost giddy as the thought of what’s coming next.

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The “meh” experience of sermon-writing on my iPad

Posted on June 30, 2011 | 4 Comments

Today I took the plunge and wrote my sermon on my iPad. It’s a “doable” experience, but not one I’d want to repeat over and over again just yet. Let me share my two biggest reasons why I don’t think it’s quite “there” yet.

  • There aren’t any windows. I know, on the iPad that’s a feature rather than a bug – but the nice thing about windows is the ability to look at information, and enter in data in another window without have to completely switch screens (or do so seamlessly). Also, I keep IM open while I’m working and I miss seeing my IM client there while I’m typing away. Most of my problems will be handled in iOS 5 this fall, switching apps seamlessly will be a simple swipe-gesture, and the new alerts set-up for iOS 5 will solve my IM dilemma. Right now, however, working collaboratively between processes is rather disruptive.
  • The writing apps aren’t quite up to snuff. I use Documents to Go as my word processor. It’s not awesome, but it does outlines, is synced to my Google Docs account (though it really should sync the doc automatically when it’s saved, rather than syncing only after the document is closed), and has a good set of features. It’s not as stunning to look at as Pages, but it actually has the features I need. The problem is, the keyboard support is pretty awful – the typical formatting shortcuts don’t work, and neither does the “save” command (which is needed, I lost whole paragraphs because the app didn’t suspend properly when I went to go search something in my Bible app). Also, would it kill Documents to Go to have a setting to enable typographic quotes? It just looks nicer. This writing experience needs to improve significantly before I move over to writing sermons on my iPad full-time.

So, that’s where I am. I could keep my MacBook shut down all week and just write on my iPad – but the disruptive way of collaboratively working between processes, coupled with weak apps for document generation, make it an undesirable option. I actually had considered using Google Docs directly on my iPad, but the desktop version is suddenly not working properly on my iPad anymore! I’ll keep looking for tools that make sermon-writing on my iPad a more enjoyable experience, and will revisit the process when iOS 5 comes out in the fall.

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Immersion emergence

Posted on April 26, 2011 | 2 Comments

The other day I needed to get some work done on my MacBook, and felt an odd emotion.

I was annoyed.

It was odd feeling. Over the last decade and a half I’ve moved from Windows, to Linux, and then to Mac. Each time the shift was met with a sense of joy at the prospect of learning new skills and tools. Each was also accompanied by a sense of wonder at the sheer speed of the computing power suddenly at my disposal – the shift to the Mac was perhaps the greatest of these (though, to be honest, I doubt I’d appreciate the Mac as much if I hadn’t used Linux for so long).

For some reason, I didn’t expect a similar sense of wonder about iOS. My iPad, after all, was supposed to be an ancillary device – the one that I use when I’m not doing anything “major.” Even after noting that my time on both my MacBook and iPhone has dropped significantly, I still didn’t think about my adoption of the iPad as a shift to a primary device. That is, until, I woke up my MacBook from sleep and did something of which I had become unaccustomed — I waited. First, I had to wait while the MacBook drive spun-up and the machine became usable. This wait, which is significantly faster than the Windows and Linux machines I’ve used in the past, suddenly became intolerable. I had to wait for my application to start, and then I had to search for the file I wanted, and the wait for it to open. By the time I got done I shut the MacBook, thinking to myself, “I really don’t like this!”. While I still use the MacBook for many tasks, it’s no longer the pleasure it once was. The MacBook has a barrier between me and my work, while my iPad let’s me touch it in order to move it around and manipulate it. While geeks tend to laugh at terms like “immersive,” that’s exactly what is appealing about devices like the iPad.

This isn’t to say it’s perfect, I still worry about the unclear application approval process that Apple uses for it’s app store, and I don’t like how the app store actually prevents open source software from appearing there as well. I also worry at the heavy-handed way Apple is insisting that everything which can be purchased via a link in an app (such as with the Kindle app). I still want a physical keyboard to touch-type and will probably get one soon (though that weakens the sense of immersion, I admit).

I will probably buy another MacBook at some point, but when I do, it will be an Air — it’s the only computer on the market right now that I think will ease my new sense of annoyance with old-style computing.

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One Month with the iPad

Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment
iPad Springboard

My SpringBoard

Just about one month ago I stood in line with my friend Vernl, awaiting the “appointed hour” for the iPad to be released. I had a blast waiting with some other anti-social geek-types, and had some ideas in mind how I’d use this tool before I purchased it. So, I thought I’d share a bit about how my experience has matched up against my expectations.

First, in the past month I’ve found myself using my MacBook less and less. If I’m taking notes at a meeting, working on a special order of worship, or planning a funeral the iPad has been the tool of choice (just as I planned). At the same time, however, I’ve used the iPad almost exclusively to read news, IM, tweet, check Facebook, and keep track of baseball scores (MLB at Bat on the iPad is drool-worthy). The exact same thing is true at home as it is when I’m working, the iPad is just “there,” and gets out of the way at the same time. It’s a wonderful balance.

Second, I do prefer the physical keyboard for typing. Apparently there are studies being done that show how kids who grow up with the on-screen keyboard are able to type as fast as people who learned on a physical one, but I didn’t grow up with an on-screen keyboard and it manages to drive me crazy at times. I don’t think I’d ever type a sermon from scratch using my iPad, for example.

Third, I much prefer blogging from my laptop. I utterly despise the official wordpress client for iPad (I’ve had too many screw-ups with it to feel any affection), and while apps such as BlogPress help, I have to write code to format the text the way I want. This is OK, as I know html and can visualize the look of an article as I write it, but BlogPress needs more “helper” buttons. Manually writing tags on an on-screen keyboard is a nightmare. There are technical challenges to a wysiwyg editor (I asked) but is it too much to ask for paragraph and list buttons?

Fourth, I use my iPhone much less. Many of the tasks I did on my iPhone now do on the iPad to take advantage of the larger screen. Quick e-mails to groups with time-sensitive information, scheduling appointments, and jotting down quick notes in Evernote are all tasks which have migrated to my iPad.

Fifth, I find myself increasingly annoyed by any app which doesn’t have cloud-syncing capabilities to keep data up-to-date on my various devices. Things is a huge culprit here. I love using Things – it’s a great task-management tool. Yet, it only syncs when I have both the Mac and the iOS app opened. Before I got the iPad I grudgingly accepted the behavior – knowing they were working on a solution. Since I’ve had the iPad, however, Things annoys the living daylights out of me – and I don’t even have the iPad version of Things! Evernote does it right, on any device I use, notes are automatically synced through the cloud. If I do something on my iPad, it shows up on my phone. If I need to check a note I made while I was out, it will be on my Mac. That is what I want, and apps which need to pass data between each other on a regular basis needs to do this.

Finally, I’ve discovered that what Steve Jobs said in his iPad 2 announcement is absolutely true. A personal computer (be it a Mac, Windows, or Linux machine) really is a truck. It’s great for heavy lifting (like complex video editing/rendering, and multi-window tasks like my sermon research), and it tends to be over-kill for “ordinary” tasks. My iPad, has really become my go to device. It’s just there, it’s on, and the experience of using it is amazing. The on-screen keyboard prevents me from using it as my main writing machine at this point – but with the addition of an external keyboard, I foresee myself using it more and more (especially as Accordance’s iOS offering continues to increase in functionality).

When the iPad was announced last year, I thought it was cool. I also couldn’t figure out it’s niche because it looked like an over-sized iPod Touch. Then we found a use the iPad for my son as a reading device, and I’ve never looked back. Having an iPad that is mine to use has changed the way I approach computing just one month. There’s no telling where we’ll be when Honeycomb and webOS* attract even more people not only to this form-factor, but this style of computing!

*if you’re thinking, “What about the playbook?” It doesn’t get in the list because the playbook doesn’t even have a native e-mail client. It’s a Blackberry device without and e-mail client. It’s a slick #fail.

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